Mission Mission

Here was the scene at yesterday’s debut of the new Dear Mom food menu. Although the Chez Spencer food was great, the Fogcutter crew’s offerings are better suited to the kind of heavy drinking that should, and does, go on at DM. Highlights included the chihuahua dog (which was enormous and loaded) at the classic cojita fries. Click through for gratuitously up-close food photos and the complete menu.  (more…)

Just had a jar of this golden ale made with rice, presumably to complement the quasi-Asian Namu menu. Magnolia brews some of the best beers in the city, so getting an exclusive from them is a pretty big deal. This bright, slightly bitter sunny-day ale is great for anyone who is sick of paying $9 for a 12 ounce bottle of Hitachino.

Pascal Rigo, who just sold his bakery to Starbucks for $100 million (in other words, 10% of an Instragam), had some choice words for famed local bakery Tartine:

“[San Francisco] is the only place in the world where a bakery will make money by having bread at five o’clock in the afternoon. And it’s what—40 or 50 loaves, and each one costs seven bucks? It’s good, yes, but to call it a bakery … it’s bull-sheet.”

We’re perfectly happy that La Boulange has made a bunch of money, especially because they deliver great product. Not sure why he’s so mad at another bakery that people are happy to line up to patronize. Read on at grubstreet.

Reviews of Southern Pacific Brewing’s food offerings have been mixed, but one thing everyone seems to agree on is that the sage fries are a winner. Huge portion for only $4, or upgrade your sandwich/burger’s normal fries for 50 cents. Salty, which goes well with beer, and the sage goes well with hops, which are in beer. For what it’s worth, the ham sandwich was also bangin’. I’m officially a fan.

Turned out he was just sporting an ambitious leather fanny pack.

Armed with a paint scraper, this guy came blustering down 17th clearing our city’s telephone poles of xeroxed flyers and other like debris. Unfortunately, his cleanliness≈godliness approach did not extend to the sidewalks, where he discarded newly created trash as he continued on his rampage. I tailed him until Guerrero (well, I was on my way home) where he ducked through a doorway to pick up his dry cleaning.

Several cop cars have eastbound traffic blocked off between Mission and Valencia. No ambulances so far, so that’s nice.

Don’t miss out on free stuff as Dianda’s marks 50 years in SF. As a result of their tres leches, cannoli, and famous rumcake, this place already has a loyal fan base, but evidently they’re looking to double down. Come out tomorrow and tip your puff to an SF institution.

If you want to take advantage of this opportunity to live on the famed Valencia corridor, you’re running out of time. Per the building’s website, there are only two units left in the brand new condo complex. Although, as Curbed notes, if you don’t get a chance to buy, you can always rent one for $4750.

[via Curbed]

Josh Heller and 30+ of his closest friends are spending the summer in Moscow, ID. In order to escape the stresses and expenses of big city life, they have converged on the small college town (population 23,000) for a summer of day hikes, art projects, and general summer fun. Working with the town to organize public events, the communers hope to create a temporary community of creative types that will hopefully recur in the coming years. We spoke with Josh as he was setting up shop in his new home town.

MM: How’s it going so far? What are you doing in terms of organization? Is there a schedule?

JH: I’ve been meeting with business leaders and city council to talk about venues and places that we can have events. So we have some more formal things that we are working on actively. We have a kickoff event scheduled for June 16^th. [Communer] Nicole Kelly is a fiction writer – she’s been helping set up a fiction reading series. Christin Lee, who’s been really helpful, is trying to set up a gallery showcase for studio art. So we have those kinds of things.

For things that are a little bit less formal, we really want for people who are coming to make it a participatory event. So if you have a skill or an interesting background, we want to have presentations or talks to involve other people and what they’re doing. Those things are still in the process, based in a lot of ways on who’s coming.

Then we have the very casual, which is pot lucks and happy hours and camping trips.

MM: Tell me a little bit about the launch party.

JH: Well, this summer, we’re trying to make three big events that are incorporating the summer communers and the local community. By the way, we weren’t sure where we were gonna go, and choosing Moscow was just the best decision. The people here have been so supportive and so excited for us to be here. So for the first party that we’re going to do, it’s a meet and greet and way to introduce the people who have just arrived to the local community. There’s a university here, so there’s already an academic community and an arts community.

MM: What are your aspirations for the summer? What would you love to see happen?

JH: The project is grounded in economic realities. If you live in the Mission right now your rent will be seven or eight hundred dollars for a room. Right now I’m living in a three bedroom house for 650 dollars. So, in the center of the country we can live way more affordably. The goal for summer commune is to help people realize that if you’re a creative person, especially in this era of mobile work, you don’t need to live in Brooklyn or Los Angeles or San Francisco. My hope is that we can create communities that we appreciate in places that are not as expensive to rent. And then obviously if you’re talking specifically about the regions where creative people live, we have gentrification and other things that are the result of this economic push. And so we’re just looking for alternatives to that.

So my aspiration would be that hopefully this idea would spread and people could do it on their own and do their own thing wherever they want.

I think it has potential to, at a minimum, be just a pretty fun summer and, at maximum, change the dynamics for the way that we interact as a global community, or something like that. [Laughs.] The possibilities are endless.

We’ll check in with Josh as the summer progresses to see how it’s going. They’ve got a Facebook page and a Tumblr if you’d like to follow along. So hey, if you just lost your job or got evicted, or if you’re just looking for a change, head to Moscow! Hang out!

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